Her voice never changed: still clear, sharp, like pure water from the streams in his hometown, delicate like snow falling on the trees in his backyard, loving like the sun kissing his skin on heady summer days. 

He loved hearing her practice, guitar in hand, fitting new words and inflections and flourishes in her songs the same way she tried on new clothes at the thrift store. She always practiced after lunch, even after all these years, even after time whitened his hair and slowed down his pace, even if her voice and face and memory stayed young, frozen in time, in a place where death and oblivion couldn’t erase the sparkle in her dark eyes and the softness of her curls.

As long as he kept playing her records after lunch, her voice and laughter and memory would come back to life, bringing her, at least for a few moments, back to him.